The ground was littered with pine needles and blown leaves, a
carpet of green and brown still damp from the recent rains. It
squished beneath their feet. Huge bare oaks, tall sentinels, and
hosts of soldier pines stood all around them. On a hill above them
was another roundtower, ancient and empty, thick green moss
crawling up its side almost to the summit. “Who built that,
all of stone like that?” Ygritte asked him. “Some
king?”
“No. Just the men who used to live here.”
“What happened to them?”
“They died or went away.” Brandon’s Gift had
been farmed for thousands of years, but as the Watch dwindled there
were fewer hands to plow the fields, tend the bees, and plant the
orchards, so the wild had reclaimed many a field and hall. In the
New Gift there had been villages and holdfasts whose taxes,
rendered in goods and labor, helped feed and clothe the black
brothers. But those were largely gone as well.
“They were fools to leave such a castle,” said
Ygritte.
“It’s only a towerhouse. Some little lordling lived
there once, with his family and a few sworn men. When raiders came
he would light a beacon from the roof. Winterfell has towers three
times the size of that.”
She looked as if she thought he was making that up. “How
could men build so high, with no giants to lift the
stones?”
In legend, Brandon the Builder had used giants to help raise
Winterfell, but Jon did not want to confuse the issue. “Men
can build a lot higher than this. In Oldtown there’s a tower
taller than the Wall.” He could tell she did not believe him.
If I could show her Winterfell . . . give her a
flower from the glass gardens, feast her in the Great Hall, and
show her the stone kings on their thrones. We could bathe in the
hot pools, and love beneath the heart tree while the old gods
watched over us.
The dream was sweet . . . but Winterfell
would never be his to show. It belonged to his brother, the King in
the North. He was a Snow, not a Stark. Bastard, oathbreaker, and
turncloak . . .
“Might be after we could come back here, and live in that
tower,” she said. “Would you want that, Jon Snow?
After?” After. The word was a spear thrust. After the war. After the
conquest. After the wildlings break the
Wall . . .
His lord father had once talked about raising new lords and
settling them in the abandoned holdfasts as a shield against
wildlings. The plan would have required the Watch to yield back a
large part of the Gift, but his uncle Benjen believed the Lord
Commander could be won around, so long as the new lordlings paid
taxes to Castle Black rather than Winterfell. “It is a dream
for spring, though,” Lord Eddard had said. “Even the
promise of land will not lure men north with a winter coming
on.” If winter had come and gone more quickly and spring had followed
in its turn, I might have been chosen to hold one of these towers
in my father’s name. Lord Eddard was dead, however, his
brother Benjen lost; the shield they dreamt together would never be
forged. “This land belongs to the Watch,” Jon said.
Her nostrils flared. “No one lives here.”
“Your raiders drove them off.”
“They were cowards, then. If they wanted the land they
should have stayed and fought.”
“Maybe they were tired of fighting. Tired of barring their
doors every night and wondering if Rattleshirt or someone like him
would break them down to carry off their wives. Tired of having
their harvests stolen, and any valuables they might have.
It’s easier to move beyond the reach of raiders.” But
if the Wall should fail, all the north will lie within the reach of
raiders.
“You know nothing, Jon Snow. Daughters are taken, not
wives. You’re the ones who steal. You took the whole world,
and built the Wall t’ keep the free folk out.”
“Did we?” Sometimes Jon forgot how wild she was, and
then she would remind him. “How did that happen?”
“The gods made the earth for all men t’ share. Only
when the kings come with their crowns and steel swords, they
claimed it was all theirs. My trees, they said, you can’t eat
them apples. My stream, you can’t fish here. My wood,
you’re not t’ hunt. My earth, my water, my castle, my
daughter, keep your hands away or I’ll chop ’em off,
but maybe if you kneel t’ me I’ll let you have a sniff.
You call us thieves, but at least a thief has t’ be brave and
clever and quick. A kneeler only has t’ kneel.”
“Harma and the Bag of Bones don’t come raiding for fish
and apples. They steal swords and axes. Spices, silks, and furs.
They grab every coin and ring and jeweled cup they can find, casks
of wine in summer and casks of beef in winter, and they take women
in any season and carry them off beyond the Wall.”
“And what if they do? I’d sooner be stolen by a
strong man than be given t’ some weakling by my
father.”
“You say that, but how can you know? What if you were
stolen by someone you hated?”
“He’d have t’ be quick and cunning and brave
t’ steal me. So his sons would be strong and smart as well.
Why would I hate such a man as that?”
“Maybe he never washes, so he smells as rank as a
bear.”
“Then I’d push him in a stream or throw a bucket
o’ water on him. Anyhow, men shouldn’t smell sweet like
flowers.”
“What’s wrong with flowers?”
“Nothing, for a bee. For bed I want one o’
these.” Ygritte made to grab the front of his breeches.
Jon caught her wrist. “What if the man who stole you drank
too much?” he insisted. “What if he was brutal or
cruel?” He tightened his grip to make a point. “What if
he was stronger than you, and liked to beat you bloody?”
“I’d cut his throat while he slept. You know
nothing, Jon Snow.” Ygritte twisted like an eel and wrenched
away from him. I know one thing. I know that you are wildling to the bone. It
was easy to forget that sometimes, when they were laughing
together, or kissing. But then one of them would say something, or
do something, and he would suddenly be reminded of the wall between
their worlds.
“A man can own a woman or a man can own a knife,”
Ygritte told him, “but no man can own both. Every little girl
learns that from her mother.” She raised her chin defiantly
and gave her thick red hair a shake. “And men can’t own
the land no more’n they can own the sea or the sky. You
kneelers think you do, but Mance is going t’ show you
different.”
It was a fine brave boast, but it rang hollow. Jon glanced back
to make certain the Magnar was not in earshot. Errok, Big Boil, and
Hempen Dan were walking a few yards behind them, but paying no
attention. Big Boil was complaining of his arse.
“Ygritte,” he said in a low voice, “Mance cannot
win this war.”
“He can!” she insisted. “You know nothing, Jon
Snow. You have never seen the free folk fight!”
Wildlings fought like heroes or demons, depending on who you
talked to, but it came down to the same thing in the end. They
fight with reckless courage, every man out for glory. “I
don’t doubt that you’re all very brave, but when it
comes to battle, discipline beats valor every time. In the end
Mance will fail as all the Kings-beyond-the-Wall have failed before
him. And when he does, you’ll die. All of you.”
Ygritte had looked so angry he thought she was about to strike
him. “All of us,” she said. “You too.
You’re no crow now, Jon Snow. I swore you weren’t, so
you better not be.” She pushed him back against the trunk of
a tree and kissed him, full on the lips right there in the midst of
the ragged column. Jon heard Grigg the Goat urging her on. Someone
else laughed. He kissed her back despite all that. When they
finally broke apart, Ygritte was flushed. “You’re
mine,” she whispered. “Mine, as I’m yours. And if
we die, we die. All men must die, Jon Snow. But first we’ll
live.”
“Yes.” His voice was thick. “First we’ll
live.”
She grinned at that, showing Jon the crooked teeth that he had
somehow come to love. Wildling to the bone, he thought again, with
a sick sad feeling in the pit of his stomach. He flexed the fingers
of his sword hand, and wondered what Ygritte would do if she knew
his heart. Would she betray him if he sat her down and told her
that he was still Ned Stark’s son and a man of the
Night’s Watch? He hoped not, but he dare not take that risk.
Too many lives depended on his somehow reaching Castle Black before
the Magnar . . . assuming he found a chance to
escape the wildlings.
They had descended the south face of the Wall at Greyguard,
abandoned for two hundred years. A section of the huge stone steps
had collapsed a century before, but even so the descent was a good
deal easier than the climb. From there Styr marched them deep into
the Gift, to avoid the Watch’s customary patrols. Grigg the
Goat led them past the few inhabited villages that remained in
these lands. Aside from a few scattered roundtowers poking the sky
like stone fingers, they saw no sign of man. Through cold wet hills
and windy plains they marched, unwatched, unseen. You must not balk, whatever is asked of you, the Halfhand had
said. Ride with them, eat with them, fight with them, for as long
as it takes. He’d ridden many leagues and walked for more,
had shared their bread and salt, and Ygritte’s blankets as
well, but still they did not trust him. Day and night the Thenns
watched him, alert for any signs of betrayal. He could not get
away, and soon it would be too late. Fight with them, Qhorin had said, before he surrendered his own
life to Longclaw . . . but it had not come to
that, till now. Once I shed a brother’s blood I am lost. I
cross the Wall for good then, and there is no crossing back.
After each day’s march the Magnar summoned him to ask
shrewd sharp questions about Castle Black, its garrison and
defenses. Jon lied where he dared and feigned ignorance a few
times, but Grigg the Goat and Errok listened as well, and they knew
enough to make Jon careful. Too blatant a lie would betray him.
But the truth was terrible. Castle Black had no defenses, but
for the Wall itself. It lacked even wooden palisades or earthen
dikes. The “castle” was nothing more than a cluster of
towers and keeps, two-thirds of them falling into ruin. As for the
garrison, the Old Bear had taken two hundred on his ranging. Had
any returned? Jon could not know. Perhaps four hundred remained at
the castle, but most of those were builders or stewards, not
rangers.
The Thenns were hardened warriors, and more disciplined than the
common run of wildling; no doubt that was why Mance had chosen
them. The defenders of Castle Black would include blind Maester
Aemon and his half-blind steward Clydas, one-armed Donal Noye,
drunken Septon Cellador, Deaf Dick Follard, Three-Finger Hobb the
cook, old Ser Wynton Stout, as well as Halder and Toad and Pyp and
Albett and the rest of the boys who’d trained with Jon. And
commanding them would be red-faced Bowen Marsh, the plump Lord
Steward who had been made castellan in Lord Mormont’s
absence. Dolorous Edd sometimes called Marsh “the Old
Pomegranate,” which fit him just as well as “the Old
Bear” fit Mormont. “He’s the man you want in
front when the foes are in the field,” Edd would say in his
usual dour voice. “He’ll count them right up for you. A
regular demon for counting, that one.” If the Magnar takes Castle Black unawares, it will be red
slaughter, boys butchered in their beds before they know they are
under attack. Jon had to warn them, but how? He was never sent out
to forage or hunt, nor allowed to stand a watch alone. And he
feared for Ygritte as well. He could not take her, but if he left
her, would the Magnar make her answer for his treachery? Two hearts
that beat as one . . .
They shared the same sleeping skins every night, and he went to
sleep with her head against his chest and her red hair tickling his
chin. The smell of her had become a part of him. Her crooked teeth,
the feel of her breast when he cupped it in his hand, the taste of
her mouth . . . they were his joy and his
despair. Many a night he lay with Ygritte warm beside him,
wondering if his lord father had felt this confused about his
mother, whoever she had been. Ygritte set the trap and Mance Rayder
pushed me into it.
Every day he spent among the wildlings made what he had to do
that much harder. He was going to have to find some way to betray
these men, and when he did they would die. He did not want their
friendship, any more than he wanted Ygritte’s love. And
yet . . . the Thenns spoke the Old Tongue and
seldom talked to Jon at all, but it was different with Jarl’s raiders, the men who’d climbed the Wall. Jon
was coming to know them despite himself: gaunt, quiet Errok and
gregarious Grigg the Goat, the boys Quort and Bodger, Hempen Dan
the ropemaker. The worst of the lot was Del, a horsefaced youth
near Jon’s own age, who would talk dreamily of this wildling
girl he meant to steal. “She’s lucky, like your
Ygritte. She’s kissed by fire.”
Jon had to bite his tongue. He didn’t want to know about
Del’s girl or Bodger’s mother, the place by the sea
that Henk the Helm came from, how Grigg yearned to visit the green
men on the Isle of Faces, or the time a moose had chased Toefinger
up a tree. He didn’t want to hear about the boil on Big
Boil’s arse, how much ale Stone Thumbs could drink, or how
Quort’s little brother had begged him not to go with Jarl.
Quort could not have been older than fourteen, though he’d
already stolen himself a wife and had a child on the way.
“Might be he’ll be born in some castle,” the boy
boasted. “Born in a castle like a lord!” He was very
taken with the “castles” they’d seen, by which he
meant watchtowers.
Jon wondered where Ghost was now. Had he gone to Castle Black,
or was he was running with some wolfpack in the woods? He had no
sense of the direwolf, not even in his dreams. It made him feel as
if part of himself had been cut off. Even with Ygritte sleeping
beside him, he felt alone. He did not want to die alone.
By that afternoon the trees had begun to thin, and they marched
east over gently rolling plains. Grass rose waist high around them,
and stands of wild wheat swayed gently when the wind came gusting,
but for the most part the day was warm and bright. Toward sunset,
however, clouds began to threaten in the west. They soon engulfed
the orange sun, and Lenn foretold a bad storm coming. His mother
was a woods witch, so all the raiders agreed he had a gift for
foretelling the weather. “There’s a village
close,” Grigg the Goat told the Magnar. “Two miles,
three. We could shelter there.” Styr agreed at once.
It was well past dark and the storm was raging by the time they
reached the place. The village sat beside a lake, and had been so
long abandoned that most of the houses had collapsed. Even the
small timber inn that must once have been a welcome sight for
travelers stood half-fallen and roofless. We will find scant
shelter here, Jon thought gloomily. Whenever the lightning flashed
he could see a stone roundtower rising from an island out in the
lake, but without boats they had no way to reach it.
Errok and Del had crept ahead to scout the ruins, but Del was
back almost at once. Styr halted the column and sent a dozen of his
Thenns trotting forward, spears in hand. By then Jon had seen it
too: the glimmer of a fire, reddening the chimney of the inn. We
are not alone. Dread coiled inside him like a snake. He heard a
horse neigh, and then shouts. Ride with them, eat with them, fight
with them, Qhorin had said.
But the fighting was done. “There’s only one of
them,” Errok said when he came back. “An old man with a
horse.”
The Magnar shouted commands in the Old Tongue and a score of his
Thenns spread out to establish a perimeter around the village,
whilst others went prowling through the houses to make certain no
one else was hiding amongst the weeds and tumbled stones. The rest
crowded into the roofless inn, jostling each other to get closer to
the hearth. The broken branches the old man had been burning seemed
to generate more smoke than heat, but any warmth was welcome on
such a wild rainy night. Two of the Thenns had thrown the man to
the ground and were going through his things. Another held his
horse, while three more looted his saddlebags.
Jon walked away. A rotten apple squished beneath his heel. Styr
will kill him. The Magnar had said as much at Greyguard; any
kneelers they met were to be put to death at once, to make certain
they could not raise the alarm. Ride with them, eat with them,
fight with them. Did that mean he must stand mute and helpless
while they slit an old man’s throat?
Near the edge of the village, Jon came face-to-face with one of
the guards Styr had posted. The Thenn growled something in the Old
Tongue and pointed his spear back toward the inn. Get back where
you belong, Jon guessed. But where is that?
He walked towards the water, and discovered an almost dry spot
beneath the leaning daub-and-wattle wall of a tumbledown cottage
that had mostly tumbled down. That was where Ygritte found him
sitting, staring off across the rain-whipped lake. “I know
this place,” he told her when she sat beside him. “That
tower . . . look at the top of it the next time
the lightning flashes, and tell me what you see.”
“Aye, if you like,” she said, and then, “Some
o’ the Thenns are saying they heard noises out there.
Shouting, they say.”
“Thunder.”
“They say shouting. Might be it’s ghosts.”
The holdfast did have a grim haunted look, standing there black
against the storm on its rocky island with the rain lashing at the
lake all around it. “We could go out and take a look,”
he suggested. “I doubt we could get much wetter than we
are.”
“Swimming? In the storm?” She laughed at the notion.
“Is this a trick t’ get the clothes off me, Jon
Snow?”
“Do I need a trick for that now?” he teased.
“Or is that you can’t swim a stroke?” Jon was a
strong swimmer himself, having learned the art as a boy in
Winterfell’s great moat.
Ygritte punched his arm. “You know nothing, Jon Snow.
I’m half a fish, I’ll have you know.”
“Half fish, half goat, half
horse . . . there’s too many halves to
you, Ygritte.” He shook his head. “We wouldn’t
need to swim, if this is the place I think. We could
walk.”
She pulled back and gave him a look. “Walk on water? What
southron sorcery is that?”
“No sorc—” he began, as a huge bolt of
lightning stabbed down from the sky and touched the surface of the
lake. For half a heartbeat the world was noonday bright. The clap
of thunder was so loud that Ygritte gasped and covered her
ears.
“Did you look?” Jon asked, as the sound rolled away
and the night turned black again. “Did you see?”
“Yellow,” she said. “Is that what you meant?
Some o’ them standing stones on top were yellow.”
“We call them merlons. They were painted gold a long time
ago. This is Queenscrown.”
Across the lake, the tower was black again, a dim shape dimly
seen. “A queen lived there?” asked Ygritte.
“A queen stayed there for a night.” Old Nan had told
him the story, but Maester Luwin had confirmed most of it.
“Alysanne, the wife of King Jaehaerys the Conciliator.
He’s called the Old King because he reigned so long, but he
was young when he first came to the Iron Throne. In those days, it
was his wont to travel all over the realm. When he came to
Winterfell, he brought his queen, six dragons, and half his court.
The king had matters to discuss with his Warden of the North, and
Alysanne grew bored, so she mounted her dragon Silverwing and flew
north to see the Wall. This village was one of the places where she
stopped. Afterward the smallfolk painted the top of their holdfast
to look like the golden crown she’d worn when she spent the
night among them.”
“I have never seen a dragon.”
“No one has. The last dragons died a hundred years ago or
more. But this was before that.”
“Queen Alysanne, you say?”
“Good Queen Alysanne, they called her later. One of the
castles on the Wall was named for her as well. Queensgate. Before
her visit they called it Snowgate.”
“If she was so good, she should have torn that Wall
down.” No, he thought. The Wall protects the realm. From the
Others . . . and from you and your kind as
well, sweetling. “I had another friend who dreamed of
dragons. A dwarf. He told me—”
“JON SNOW!” One of the Thenns loomed above them,
frowning. “Magnar wants.” Jon thought it might have
been the same man who’d found him outside the cave, the night
before they climbed the Wall, but he could not be sure. He got to
his feet. Ygritte came with him, which always made Styr frown, but
whenever he tried to dismiss her she would remind him that she was
a free woman, not a kneeler. She came and went as she pleased.
They found the Magnar standing beneath the tree that grew
through the floor of the common room. His captive knelt before the
hearth, encircled by wooden spears and bronze swords. He watched
Jon approach, but did not speak. The rain was running down the
walls and pattering against the last few leaves that still clung to
the tree, while smoke swirled thick from the fire.
“He must die,” Styr the Magnar said. “Do it,
crow.”
The old man said no word. He only looked at Jon, standing
amongst the wildlings. Amidst the rain and smoke, lit only by the
fire, he could not have seen that Jon was all in black, but for his
sheepskin cloak. Or could he?
Jon drew Longclaw from its sheath. Rain washed the steel, and
the firelight traced a sullen orange line along the edge. Such a
small fire, to cost a man his life. He remembered what Qhorin
Halfhand had said when they spied the fire in the Skirling Pass.
Fire is life up here, he told them, but it can be death as well.
That was high in the Frostfangs, though, in the lawless wild beyond
the Wall. This was the Gift, protected by the Night’s Watch
and the power of Winterfell. A man should have been free to build a
fire here, without dying for it.
“Why do you hesitate?” Styr said. “Kill him,
and be done.”
Even then the captive did not speak. “Mercy,” he
might have said, or “You have taken my horse, my coin, my
food, let me keep my life,” or “No, please, I have done
you no harm.” He might have said a thousand things, or wept,
or called upon his gods. No words would save him now, though.
Perhaps he knew that. So he held his tongue, and looked at Jon in
accusation and appeal. You must not balk, whatever is asked of you. Ride with them, eat
with them, fight with them . . . but this old
man had offered no resistance. He had been unlucky, that was all.
Who he was, where he came from, where he meant to go on his sorry
sway-backed horse . . . none of it
mattered. He is an old man, Jon told himself. Fifty, maybe even sixty. He
lived a longer life than most. The Thenns will kill him anyway,
nothing I can say or do will save him. Longclaw seemed heavier than
lead in his hand, too heavy to lift. The man kept staring at him,
with eyes as big and black as wells. I will fall into those eyes
and drown. The Magnar was looking at him too, and he could almost
taste the mistrust. The man is dead. What matter if it is my hand
that slays him? One cut would do it, quick and clean. Longclaw was
forged of Valyrian steel. Like Ice. Jon remembered another killing;
the deserter on his knees, his head rolling, the brightness of
blood on snow . . . his father’s sword,
his father’s words, his father’s
face . . .
“Do it, Jon Snow,” Ygritte urged. “You must.
T’ prove you are no crow, but one o’ the free
folk.”
“An old man sitting by a fire?”
“Orell was sitting by a fire too. You killed him quick
enough.” The look she gave him then was hard. “You
meant t’ kill me too, till you saw I was a woman. And I was
asleep.”
“That was different. You were
soldiers . . . sentries.”
“Aye, and you crows didn’t want t’ be seen. No more’n
we do, now. It’s just the same. Kill him.”
He turned his back on the man. “No.”
The Magnar moved closer, tall, cold, and dangerous. “I say
yes. I command here.”
“You command Thenns,” Jon told him, “not free
folk.”
“I see no free folk. I see a crow and a crow
wife.”
“I’m no crow wife!” Ygritte snatched her knife
from its sheath. Three quick strides, and she yanked the old
man’s head back by the hair and opened his throat from ear to
ear. Even in death, the man did not cry out. “You know
nothing, Jon Snow!” she shouted at him, and flung the bloody
blade at his feet.
The Magnar said something in the Old Tongue. He might have been
telling the Thenns to kill Jon where he stood, but he would never
know the truth of that. Lightning crashed down from the sky, a
searing blue-white bolt that touched the top of the tower in the
lake. They could smell the fury of it, and when the thunder came it
seemed to shake the night.
And death leapt down amongst them.
The lightning flash left Jon night-blind, but he glimpsed the
hurtling shadow half a heartbeat before he heard the shriek. The
first Thenn died as the old man had, blood gushing from his torn
throat. Then the light was gone and the shape was spinning away,
snarling, and another man went down in the dark. There were curses,
shouts, howls of pain. Jon saw Big Boil stumble backward and knock
down three men behind him. Ghost, he thought for one mad instant.
Ghost leapt the Wall. Then the lightning turned the night to day,
and he saw the wolf standing on Del’s chest, blood running
black from his jaws. Grey. He’s grey.
Darkness descended with the thunderclap. The Thenns were jabbing
with their spears as the wolf darted between them. The old
man’s mare reared, maddened by the smell of slaughter, and
lashed out with her hooves. Longclaw was still in his hand. All at
once Jon Snow knew he would never get a better chance.
He cut down the first man as he turned toward the wolf, shoved
past a second, slashed at a third. Through the madness he heard
someone call his name, but whether it was Ygritte or the Magnar he
could not say. The Thenn fighting to control the horse never saw
him. Longclaw was feather-light. He swung at the back of the
man’s calf, and felt the steel bite down to the bone. When
the wildling fell the mare bolted, but somehow Jon managed to grab
her mane with his off hand and vault himself onto her back. A hand
closed round his ankle, and he hacked down and saw Bodger’s
face dissolve in a welter of blood. The horse reared, lashing out.
One hoof caught a Thenn in the temple, with a crunch.
And then they were running. Jon made no effort to guide the
horse. It was all he could do to stay on her as they plunged
through mud and rain and thunder. Wet grass whipped at his face and
a spear flew past his ear. If the horse stumbles and breaks a leg,
they will run me down and kill me, he thought, but the old gods
were with him and the horse did not stumble. Lightning shivered
through the black dome of sky, and thunder rolled across the
plains. The shouts dwindled and died behind him.
Long hours later, the rain stopped. Jon found himself alone in a
sea of tall black grass. There was a deep throbbing ache in his
right thigh. When he looked down, he was surprised to see an arrow
jutting out the back of it. When did that happen? He grabbed hold
of the shaft and gave it a tug, but the arrowhead was sunk deep in
the meat of his leg, and the pain when he pulled on it was
excruciating. He tried to think back on the madness at the inn, but
all he could remember was the beast, gaunt and grey and terrible.
It was too large to be a common wolf. A direwolf, then. It had to
be. He had never seen an animal move so fast. Like a grey
wind . . . could Robb have returned to the
north?
Jon shook his head. He had no answers. It was too hard to
think . . . about the wolf, the old man,
Ygritte, any of it . . .
Clumsily, he slid down off the mare’s back. His wounded
leg buckled under him, and he had to swallow a scream. This is
going to be agony. The arrow had to come out, though, and nothing
good could come of waiting. Jon curled his hand around the
fletching, took a deep breath, and shoved the arrow forward. He
grunted, then cursed. It hurt so much he had to stop. I am bleeding
like a butchered pig, he thought, but there was nothing to be done
for it until the arrow was out. He grimaced and tried
again . . . and soon stopped again, trembling.
Once more. This time he screamed, but when he was done the
arrowhead was poking through the front of his thigh. Jon pushed
back his bloody breeches to get a better grip, grimaced, and slowly
drew the shaft through his leg. How he got through that without
fainting he never knew.
He lay on the ground afterward, clutching his prize and bleeding
quietly, too weak to move. After a while, he realized that if he
did not make himself move he was like to bleed to death. Jon
crawled to the shallow stream where the mare was drinking, washed
his thigh in the cold water, and bound it tight with a strip of
cloth torn from his cloak. He washed the arrow too, turning it in
his hands. Was the fletching grey, or white? Ygritte fletched her
arrows with pale grey goose feathers. Did she loose a shaft at me
as I fled? Jon could not blame her for that. He wondered if
she’d been aiming for him or the horse. If the mare had gone
down, he would have been doomed. “A lucky thing my leg got in
the way,” he muttered.
He rested for a while to let the horse graze. She did not wander
far. That was good. Hobbled with a bad leg, he could never have
caught her. It was all he could do to force himself back to his
feet and climb onto her back. How did I ever mount her before,
without saddle or stirrups, and a sword in one hand? That was
another question he could not answer.
Thunder rumbled softly in the distance, but above him the clouds
were breaking up. Jon searched the sky until he found the Ice
Dragon, then turned the mare north for the Wall and Castle Black.
The throb of pain in his thigh muscle made him wince as he put his
heels into the old man’s horse. I am going home, he told
himself. But if that was true, why did he feel so hollow?
He rode till dawn, while the stars stared down like eyes.
The ground was littered with pine needles and blown leaves, a
carpet of green and brown still damp from the recent rains. It
squished beneath their feet. Huge bare oaks, tall sentinels, and
hosts of soldier pines stood all around them. On a hill above them
was another roundtower, ancient and empty, thick green moss
crawling up its side almost to the summit. “Who built that,
all of stone like that?” Ygritte asked him. “Some
king?”
“No. Just the men who used to live here.”
“What happened to them?”
“They died or went away.” Brandon’s Gift had
been farmed for thousands of years, but as the Watch dwindled there
were fewer hands to plow the fields, tend the bees, and plant the
orchards, so the wild had reclaimed many a field and hall. In the
New Gift there had been villages and holdfasts whose taxes,
rendered in goods and labor, helped feed and clothe the black
brothers. But those were largely gone as well.
“They were fools to leave such a castle,” said
Ygritte.
“It’s only a towerhouse. Some little lordling lived
there once, with his family and a few sworn men. When raiders came
he would light a beacon from the roof. Winterfell has towers three
times the size of that.”
She looked as if she thought he was making that up. “How
could men build so high, with no giants to lift the
stones?”
In legend, Brandon the Builder had used giants to help raise
Winterfell, but Jon did not want to confuse the issue. “Men
can build a lot higher than this. In Oldtown there’s a tower
taller than the Wall.” He could tell she did not believe him.
If I could show her Winterfell . . . give her a
flower from the glass gardens, feast her in the Great Hall, and
show her the stone kings on their thrones. We could bathe in the
hot pools, and love beneath the heart tree while the old gods
watched over us.
The dream was sweet . . . but Winterfell
would never be his to show. It belonged to his brother, the King in
the North. He was a Snow, not a Stark. Bastard, oathbreaker, and
turncloak . . .
“Might be after we could come back here, and live in that
tower,” she said. “Would you want that, Jon Snow?
After?” After. The word was a spear thrust. After the war. After the
conquest. After the wildlings break the
Wall . . .
His lord father had once talked about raising new lords and
settling them in the abandoned holdfasts as a shield against
wildlings. The plan would have required the Watch to yield back a
large part of the Gift, but his uncle Benjen believed the Lord
Commander could be won around, so long as the new lordlings paid
taxes to Castle Black rather than Winterfell. “It is a dream
for spring, though,” Lord Eddard had said. “Even the
promise of land will not lure men north with a winter coming
on.” If winter had come and gone more quickly and spring had followed
in its turn, I might have been chosen to hold one of these towers
in my father’s name. Lord Eddard was dead, however, his
brother Benjen lost; the shield they dreamt together would never be
forged. “This land belongs to the Watch,” Jon said.
Her nostrils flared. “No one lives here.”
“Your raiders drove them off.”
“They were cowards, then. If they wanted the land they
should have stayed and fought.”
“Maybe they were tired of fighting. Tired of barring their
doors every night and wondering if Rattleshirt or someone like him
would break them down to carry off their wives. Tired of having
their harvests stolen, and any valuables they might have.
It’s easier to move beyond the reach of raiders.” But
if the Wall should fail, all the north will lie within the reach of
raiders.
“You know nothing, Jon Snow. Daughters are taken, not
wives. You’re the ones who steal. You took the whole world,
and built the Wall t’ keep the free folk out.”
“Did we?” Sometimes Jon forgot how wild she was, and
then she would remind him. “How did that happen?”
“The gods made the earth for all men t’ share. Only
when the kings come with their crowns and steel swords, they
claimed it was all theirs. My trees, they said, you can’t eat
them apples. My stream, you can’t fish here. My wood,
you’re not t’ hunt. My earth, my water, my castle, my
daughter, keep your hands away or I’ll chop ’em off,
but maybe if you kneel t’ me I’ll let you have a sniff.
You call us thieves, but at least a thief has t’ be brave and
clever and quick. A kneeler only has t’ kneel.”
“Harma and the Bag of Bones don’t come raiding for fish
and apples. They steal swords and axes. Spices, silks, and furs.
They grab every coin and ring and jeweled cup they can find, casks
of wine in summer and casks of beef in winter, and they take women
in any season and carry them off beyond the Wall.”
“And what if they do? I’d sooner be stolen by a
strong man than be given t’ some weakling by my
father.”
“You say that, but how can you know? What if you were
stolen by someone you hated?”
“He’d have t’ be quick and cunning and brave
t’ steal me. So his sons would be strong and smart as well.
Why would I hate such a man as that?”
“Maybe he never washes, so he smells as rank as a
bear.”
“Then I’d push him in a stream or throw a bucket
o’ water on him. Anyhow, men shouldn’t smell sweet like
flowers.”
“What’s wrong with flowers?”
“Nothing, for a bee. For bed I want one o’
these.” Ygritte made to grab the front of his breeches.
Jon caught her wrist. “What if the man who stole you drank
too much?” he insisted. “What if he was brutal or
cruel?” He tightened his grip to make a point. “What if
he was stronger than you, and liked to beat you bloody?”
“I’d cut his throat while he slept. You know
nothing, Jon Snow.” Ygritte twisted like an eel and wrenched
away from him. I know one thing. I know that you are wildling to the bone. It
was easy to forget that sometimes, when they were laughing
together, or kissing. But then one of them would say something, or
do something, and he would suddenly be reminded of the wall between
their worlds.
“A man can own a woman or a man can own a knife,”
Ygritte told him, “but no man can own both. Every little girl
learns that from her mother.” She raised her chin defiantly
and gave her thick red hair a shake. “And men can’t own
the land no more’n they can own the sea or the sky. You
kneelers think you do, but Mance is going t’ show you
different.”
It was a fine brave boast, but it rang hollow. Jon glanced back
to make certain the Magnar was not in earshot. Errok, Big Boil, and
Hempen Dan were walking a few yards behind them, but paying no
attention. Big Boil was complaining of his arse.
“Ygritte,” he said in a low voice, “Mance cannot
win this war.”
“He can!” she insisted. “You know nothing, Jon
Snow. You have never seen the free folk fight!”
Wildlings fought like heroes or demons, depending on who you
talked to, but it came down to the same thing in the end. They
fight with reckless courage, every man out for glory. “I
don’t doubt that you’re all very brave, but when it
comes to battle, discipline beats valor every time. In the end
Mance will fail as all the Kings-beyond-the-Wall have failed before
him. And when he does, you’ll die. All of you.”
Ygritte had looked so angry he thought she was about to strike
him. “All of us,” she said. “You too.
You’re no crow now, Jon Snow. I swore you weren’t, so
you better not be.” She pushed him back against the trunk of
a tree and kissed him, full on the lips right there in the midst of
the ragged column. Jon heard Grigg the Goat urging her on. Someone
else laughed. He kissed her back despite all that. When they
finally broke apart, Ygritte was flushed. “You’re
mine,” she whispered. “Mine, as I’m yours. And if
we die, we die. All men must die, Jon Snow. But first we’ll
live.”
“Yes.” His voice was thick. “First we’ll
live.”
She grinned at that, showing Jon the crooked teeth that he had
somehow come to love. Wildling to the bone, he thought again, with
a sick sad feeling in the pit of his stomach. He flexed the fingers
of his sword hand, and wondered what Ygritte would do if she knew
his heart. Would she betray him if he sat her down and told her
that he was still Ned Stark’s son and a man of the
Night’s Watch? He hoped not, but he dare not take that risk.
Too many lives depended on his somehow reaching Castle Black before
the Magnar . . . assuming he found a chance to
escape the wildlings.
They had descended the south face of the Wall at Greyguard,
abandoned for two hundred years. A section of the huge stone steps
had collapsed a century before, but even so the descent was a good
deal easier than the climb. From there Styr marched them deep into
the Gift, to avoid the Watch’s customary patrols. Grigg the
Goat led them past the few inhabited villages that remained in
these lands. Aside from a few scattered roundtowers poking the sky
like stone fingers, they saw no sign of man. Through cold wet hills
and windy plains they marched, unwatched, unseen. You must not balk, whatever is asked of you, the Halfhand had
said. Ride with them, eat with them, fight with them, for as long
as it takes. He’d ridden many leagues and walked for more,
had shared their bread and salt, and Ygritte’s blankets as
well, but still they did not trust him. Day and night the Thenns
watched him, alert for any signs of betrayal. He could not get
away, and soon it would be too late. Fight with them, Qhorin had said, before he surrendered his own
life to Longclaw . . . but it had not come to
that, till now. Once I shed a brother’s blood I am lost. I
cross the Wall for good then, and there is no crossing back.
After each day’s march the Magnar summoned him to ask
shrewd sharp questions about Castle Black, its garrison and
defenses. Jon lied where he dared and feigned ignorance a few
times, but Grigg the Goat and Errok listened as well, and they knew
enough to make Jon careful. Too blatant a lie would betray him.
But the truth was terrible. Castle Black had no defenses, but
for the Wall itself. It lacked even wooden palisades or earthen
dikes. The “castle” was nothing more than a cluster of
towers and keeps, two-thirds of them falling into ruin. As for the
garrison, the Old Bear had taken two hundred on his ranging. Had
any returned? Jon could not know. Perhaps four hundred remained at
the castle, but most of those were builders or stewards, not
rangers.
The Thenns were hardened warriors, and more disciplined than the
common run of wildling; no doubt that was why Mance had chosen
them. The defenders of Castle Black would include blind Maester
Aemon and his half-blind steward Clydas, one-armed Donal Noye,
drunken Septon Cellador, Deaf Dick Follard, Three-Finger Hobb the
cook, old Ser Wynton Stout, as well as Halder and Toad and Pyp and
Albett and the rest of the boys who’d trained with Jon. And
commanding them would be red-faced Bowen Marsh, the plump Lord
Steward who had been made castellan in Lord Mormont’s
absence. Dolorous Edd sometimes called Marsh “the Old
Pomegranate,” which fit him just as well as “the Old
Bear” fit Mormont. “He’s the man you want in
front when the foes are in the field,” Edd would say in his
usual dour voice. “He’ll count them right up for you. A
regular demon for counting, that one.” If the Magnar takes Castle Black unawares, it will be red
slaughter, boys butchered in their beds before they know they are
under attack. Jon had to warn them, but how? He was never sent out
to forage or hunt, nor allowed to stand a watch alone. And he
feared for Ygritte as well. He could not take her, but if he left
her, would the Magnar make her answer for his treachery? Two hearts
that beat as one . . .
They shared the same sleeping skins every night, and he went to
sleep with her head against his chest and her red hair tickling his
chin. The smell of her had become a part of him. Her crooked teeth,
the feel of her breast when he cupped it in his hand, the taste of
her mouth . . . they were his joy and his
despair. Many a night he lay with Ygritte warm beside him,
wondering if his lord father had felt this confused about his
mother, whoever she had been. Ygritte set the trap and Mance Rayder
pushed me into it.
Every day he spent among the wildlings made what he had to do
that much harder. He was going to have to find some way to betray
these men, and when he did they would die. He did not want their
friendship, any more than he wanted Ygritte’s love. And
yet . . . the Thenns spoke the Old Tongue and
seldom talked to Jon at all, but it was different with Jarl’s raiders, the men who’d climbed the Wall. Jon
was coming to know them despite himself: gaunt, quiet Errok and
gregarious Grigg the Goat, the boys Quort and Bodger, Hempen Dan
the ropemaker. The worst of the lot was Del, a horsefaced youth
near Jon’s own age, who would talk dreamily of this wildling
girl he meant to steal. “She’s lucky, like your
Ygritte. She’s kissed by fire.”
Jon had to bite his tongue. He didn’t want to know about
Del’s girl or Bodger’s mother, the place by the sea
that Henk the Helm came from, how Grigg yearned to visit the green
men on the Isle of Faces, or the time a moose had chased Toefinger
up a tree. He didn’t want to hear about the boil on Big
Boil’s arse, how much ale Stone Thumbs could drink, or how
Quort’s little brother had begged him not to go with Jarl.
Quort could not have been older than fourteen, though he’d
already stolen himself a wife and had a child on the way.
“Might be he’ll be born in some castle,” the boy
boasted. “Born in a castle like a lord!” He was very
taken with the “castles” they’d seen, by which he
meant watchtowers.
Jon wondered where Ghost was now. Had he gone to Castle Black,
or was he was running with some wolfpack in the woods? He had no
sense of the direwolf, not even in his dreams. It made him feel as
if part of himself had been cut off. Even with Ygritte sleeping
beside him, he felt alone. He did not want to die alone.
By that afternoon the trees had begun to thin, and they marched
east over gently rolling plains. Grass rose waist high around them,
and stands of wild wheat swayed gently when the wind came gusting,
but for the most part the day was warm and bright. Toward sunset,
however, clouds began to threaten in the west. They soon engulfed
the orange sun, and Lenn foretold a bad storm coming. His mother
was a woods witch, so all the raiders agreed he had a gift for
foretelling the weather. “There’s a village
close,” Grigg the Goat told the Magnar. “Two miles,
three. We could shelter there.” Styr agreed at once.
It was well past dark and the storm was raging by the time they
reached the place. The village sat beside a lake, and had been so
long abandoned that most of the houses had collapsed. Even the
small timber inn that must once have been a welcome sight for
travelers stood half-fallen and roofless. We will find scant
shelter here, Jon thought gloomily. Whenever the lightning flashed
he could see a stone roundtower rising from an island out in the
lake, but without boats they had no way to reach it.
Errok and Del had crept ahead to scout the ruins, but Del was
back almost at once. Styr halted the column and sent a dozen of his
Thenns trotting forward, spears in hand. By then Jon had seen it
too: the glimmer of a fire, reddening the chimney of the inn. We
are not alone. Dread coiled inside him like a snake. He heard a
horse neigh, and then shouts. Ride with them, eat with them, fight
with them, Qhorin had said.
But the fighting was done. “There’s only one of
them,” Errok said when he came back. “An old man with a
horse.”
The Magnar shouted commands in the Old Tongue and a score of his
Thenns spread out to establish a perimeter around the village,
whilst others went prowling through the houses to make certain no
one else was hiding amongst the weeds and tumbled stones. The rest
crowded into the roofless inn, jostling each other to get closer to
the hearth. The broken branches the old man had been burning seemed
to generate more smoke than heat, but any warmth was welcome on
such a wild rainy night. Two of the Thenns had thrown the man to
the ground and were going through his things. Another held his
horse, while three more looted his saddlebags.
Jon walked away. A rotten apple squished beneath his heel. Styr
will kill him. The Magnar had said as much at Greyguard; any
kneelers they met were to be put to death at once, to make certain
they could not raise the alarm. Ride with them, eat with them,
fight with them. Did that mean he must stand mute and helpless
while they slit an old man’s throat?
Near the edge of the village, Jon came face-to-face with one of
the guards Styr had posted. The Thenn growled something in the Old
Tongue and pointed his spear back toward the inn. Get back where
you belong, Jon guessed. But where is that?
He walked towards the water, and discovered an almost dry spot
beneath the leaning daub-and-wattle wall of a tumbledown cottage
that had mostly tumbled down. That was where Ygritte found him
sitting, staring off across the rain-whipped lake. “I know
this place,” he told her when she sat beside him. “That
tower . . . look at the top of it the next time
the lightning flashes, and tell me what you see.”
“Aye, if you like,” she said, and then, “Some
o’ the Thenns are saying they heard noises out there.
Shouting, they say.”
“Thunder.”
“They say shouting. Might be it’s ghosts.”
The holdfast did have a grim haunted look, standing there black
against the storm on its rocky island with the rain lashing at the
lake all around it. “We could go out and take a look,”
he suggested. “I doubt we could get much wetter than we
are.”
“Swimming? In the storm?” She laughed at the notion.
“Is this a trick t’ get the clothes off me, Jon
Snow?”
“Do I need a trick for that now?” he teased.
“Or is that you can’t swim a stroke?” Jon was a
strong swimmer himself, having learned the art as a boy in
Winterfell’s great moat.
Ygritte punched his arm. “You know nothing, Jon Snow.
I’m half a fish, I’ll have you know.”
“Half fish, half goat, half
horse . . . there’s too many halves to
you, Ygritte.” He shook his head. “We wouldn’t
need to swim, if this is the place I think. We could
walk.”
She pulled back and gave him a look. “Walk on water? What
southron sorcery is that?”
“No sorc—” he began, as a huge bolt of
lightning stabbed down from the sky and touched the surface of the
lake. For half a heartbeat the world was noonday bright. The clap
of thunder was so loud that Ygritte gasped and covered her
ears.
“Did you look?” Jon asked, as the sound rolled away
and the night turned black again. “Did you see?”
“Yellow,” she said. “Is that what you meant?
Some o’ them standing stones on top were yellow.”
“We call them merlons. They were painted gold a long time
ago. This is Queenscrown.”
Across the lake, the tower was black again, a dim shape dimly
seen. “A queen lived there?” asked Ygritte.
“A queen stayed there for a night.” Old Nan had told
him the story, but Maester Luwin had confirmed most of it.
“Alysanne, the wife of King Jaehaerys the Conciliator.
He’s called the Old King because he reigned so long, but he
was young when he first came to the Iron Throne. In those days, it
was his wont to travel all over the realm. When he came to
Winterfell, he brought his queen, six dragons, and half his court.
The king had matters to discuss with his Warden of the North, and
Alysanne grew bored, so she mounted her dragon Silverwing and flew
north to see the Wall. This village was one of the places where she
stopped. Afterward the smallfolk painted the top of their holdfast
to look like the golden crown she’d worn when she spent the
night among them.”
“I have never seen a dragon.”
“No one has. The last dragons died a hundred years ago or
more. But this was before that.”
“Queen Alysanne, you say?”
“Good Queen Alysanne, they called her later. One of the
castles on the Wall was named for her as well. Queensgate. Before
her visit they called it Snowgate.”
“If she was so good, she should have torn that Wall
down.” No, he thought. The Wall protects the realm. From the
Others . . . and from you and your kind as
well, sweetling. “I had another friend who dreamed of
dragons. A dwarf. He told me—”
“JON SNOW!” One of the Thenns loomed above them,
frowning. “Magnar wants.” Jon thought it might have
been the same man who’d found him outside the cave, the night
before they climbed the Wall, but he could not be sure. He got to
his feet. Ygritte came with him, which always made Styr frown, but
whenever he tried to dismiss her she would remind him that she was
a free woman, not a kneeler. She came and went as she pleased.
They found the Magnar standing beneath the tree that grew
through the floor of the common room. His captive knelt before the
hearth, encircled by wooden spears and bronze swords. He watched
Jon approach, but did not speak. The rain was running down the
walls and pattering against the last few leaves that still clung to
the tree, while smoke swirled thick from the fire.
“He must die,” Styr the Magnar said. “Do it,
crow.”
The old man said no word. He only looked at Jon, standing
amongst the wildlings. Amidst the rain and smoke, lit only by the
fire, he could not have seen that Jon was all in black, but for his
sheepskin cloak. Or could he?
Jon drew Longclaw from its sheath. Rain washed the steel, and
the firelight traced a sullen orange line along the edge. Such a
small fire, to cost a man his life. He remembered what Qhorin
Halfhand had said when they spied the fire in the Skirling Pass.
Fire is life up here, he told them, but it can be death as well.
That was high in the Frostfangs, though, in the lawless wild beyond
the Wall. This was the Gift, protected by the Night’s Watch
and the power of Winterfell. A man should have been free to build a
fire here, without dying for it.
“Why do you hesitate?” Styr said. “Kill him,
and be done.”
Even then the captive did not speak. “Mercy,” he
might have said, or “You have taken my horse, my coin, my
food, let me keep my life,” or “No, please, I have done
you no harm.” He might have said a thousand things, or wept,
or called upon his gods. No words would save him now, though.
Perhaps he knew that. So he held his tongue, and looked at Jon in
accusation and appeal. You must not balk, whatever is asked of you. Ride with them, eat
with them, fight with them . . . but this old
man had offered no resistance. He had been unlucky, that was all.
Who he was, where he came from, where he meant to go on his sorry
sway-backed horse . . . none of it
mattered. He is an old man, Jon told himself. Fifty, maybe even sixty. He
lived a longer life than most. The Thenns will kill him anyway,
nothing I can say or do will save him. Longclaw seemed heavier than
lead in his hand, too heavy to lift. The man kept staring at him,
with eyes as big and black as wells. I will fall into those eyes
and drown. The Magnar was looking at him too, and he could almost
taste the mistrust. The man is dead. What matter if it is my hand
that slays him? One cut would do it, quick and clean. Longclaw was
forged of Valyrian steel. Like Ice. Jon remembered another killing;
the deserter on his knees, his head rolling, the brightness of
blood on snow . . . his father’s sword,
his father’s words, his father’s
face . . .
“Do it, Jon Snow,” Ygritte urged. “You must.
T’ prove you are no crow, but one o’ the free
folk.”
“An old man sitting by a fire?”
“Orell was sitting by a fire too. You killed him quick
enough.” The look she gave him then was hard. “You
meant t’ kill me too, till you saw I was a woman. And I was
asleep.”
“That was different. You were
soldiers . . . sentries.”
“Aye, and you crows didn’t want t’ be seen. No more’n
we do, now. It’s just the same. Kill him.”
He turned his back on the man. “No.”
The Magnar moved closer, tall, cold, and dangerous. “I say
yes. I command here.”
“You command Thenns,” Jon told him, “not free
folk.”
“I see no free folk. I see a crow and a crow
wife.”
“I’m no crow wife!” Ygritte snatched her knife
from its sheath. Three quick strides, and she yanked the old
man’s head back by the hair and opened his throat from ear to
ear. Even in death, the man did not cry out. “You know
nothing, Jon Snow!” she shouted at him, and flung the bloody
blade at his feet.
The Magnar said something in the Old Tongue. He might have been
telling the Thenns to kill Jon where he stood, but he would never
know the truth of that. Lightning crashed down from the sky, a
searing blue-white bolt that touched the top of the tower in the
lake. They could smell the fury of it, and when the thunder came it
seemed to shake the night.
And death leapt down amongst them.
The lightning flash left Jon night-blind, but he glimpsed the
hurtling shadow half a heartbeat before he heard the shriek. The
first Thenn died as the old man had, blood gushing from his torn
throat. Then the light was gone and the shape was spinning away,
snarling, and another man went down in the dark. There were curses,
shouts, howls of pain. Jon saw Big Boil stumble backward and knock
down three men behind him. Ghost, he thought for one mad instant.
Ghost leapt the Wall. Then the lightning turned the night to day,
and he saw the wolf standing on Del’s chest, blood running
black from his jaws. Grey. He’s grey.
Darkness descended with the thunderclap. The Thenns were jabbing
with their spears as the wolf darted between them. The old
man’s mare reared, maddened by the smell of slaughter, and
lashed out with her hooves. Longclaw was still in his hand. All at
once Jon Snow knew he would never get a better chance.
He cut down the first man as he turned toward the wolf, shoved
past a second, slashed at a third. Through the madness he heard
someone call his name, but whether it was Ygritte or the Magnar he
could not say. The Thenn fighting to control the horse never saw
him. Longclaw was feather-light. He swung at the back of the
man’s calf, and felt the steel bite down to the bone. When
the wildling fell the mare bolted, but somehow Jon managed to grab
her mane with his off hand and vault himself onto her back. A hand
closed round his ankle, and he hacked down and saw Bodger’s
face dissolve in a welter of blood. The horse reared, lashing out.
One hoof caught a Thenn in the temple, with a crunch.
And then they were running. Jon made no effort to guide the
horse. It was all he could do to stay on her as they plunged
through mud and rain and thunder. Wet grass whipped at his face and
a spear flew past his ear. If the horse stumbles and breaks a leg,
they will run me down and kill me, he thought, but the old gods
were with him and the horse did not stumble. Lightning shivered
through the black dome of sky, and thunder rolled across the
plains. The shouts dwindled and died behind him.
Long hours later, the rain stopped. Jon found himself alone in a
sea of tall black grass. There was a deep throbbing ache in his
right thigh. When he looked down, he was surprised to see an arrow
jutting out the back of it. When did that happen? He grabbed hold
of the shaft and gave it a tug, but the arrowhead was sunk deep in
the meat of his leg, and the pain when he pulled on it was
excruciating. He tried to think back on the madness at the inn, but
all he could remember was the beast, gaunt and grey and terrible.
It was too large to be a common wolf. A direwolf, then. It had to
be. He had never seen an animal move so fast. Like a grey
wind . . . could Robb have returned to the
north?
Jon shook his head. He had no answers. It was too hard to
think . . . about the wolf, the old man,
Ygritte, any of it . . .
Clumsily, he slid down off the mare’s back. His wounded
leg buckled under him, and he had to swallow a scream. This is
going to be agony. The arrow had to come out, though, and nothing
good could come of waiting. Jon curled his hand around the
fletching, took a deep breath, and shoved the arrow forward. He
grunted, then cursed. It hurt so much he had to stop. I am bleeding
like a butchered pig, he thought, but there was nothing to be done
for it until the arrow was out. He grimaced and tried
again . . . and soon stopped again, trembling.
Once more. This time he screamed, but when he was done the
arrowhead was poking through the front of his thigh. Jon pushed
back his bloody breeches to get a better grip, grimaced, and slowly
drew the shaft through his leg. How he got through that without
fainting he never knew.
He lay on the ground afterward, clutching his prize and bleeding
quietly, too weak to move. After a while, he realized that if he
did not make himself move he was like to bleed to death. Jon
crawled to the shallow stream where the mare was drinking, washed
his thigh in the cold water, and bound it tight with a strip of
cloth torn from his cloak. He washed the arrow too, turning it in
his hands. Was the fletching grey, or white? Ygritte fletched her
arrows with pale grey goose feathers. Did she loose a shaft at me
as I fled? Jon could not blame her for that. He wondered if
she’d been aiming for him or the horse. If the mare had gone
down, he would have been doomed. “A lucky thing my leg got in
the way,” he muttered.
He rested for a while to let the horse graze. She did not wander
far. That was good. Hobbled with a bad leg, he could never have
caught her. It was all he could do to force himself back to his
feet and climb onto her back. How did I ever mount her before,
without saddle or stirrups, and a sword in one hand? That was
another question he could not answer.
Thunder rumbled softly in the distance, but above him the clouds
were breaking up. Jon searched the sky until he found the Ice
Dragon, then turned the mare north for the Wall and Castle Black.
The throb of pain in his thigh muscle made him wince as he put his
heels into the old man’s horse. I am going home, he told
himself. But if that was true, why did he feel so hollow?
He rode till dawn, while the stars stared down like eyes.